Thursday, June 10, 2010

Local Globalization

Globalization is the word which is on lips of everyone from a layman to business associate. This practice of "going global" is the most important ingredient of growth. So far, several companies adopted this approach in order to grow and earn high profits by crossing their national boundaries and reaching another economy, another country, and different people with different culture.

What globalization is? There are various customized definition of this concept but in simple terms, we can say that globalization is phenomenon of diluting borders of countries and region and to reach consumers world over. Examples of entities are numerous who adopted globalization e.g., Toyota, Hyundai, McDonald's, Subway, KFC, Citibank, Vodafone so on and so forth.

Let's take the example of everyone's favorite i.e., McDonald's or McD's as it is pronounced mostly. McDonald a retail food chain entered various countries with a grand success. Everywhere people accepted it as part of their country itself. The reason behind is that, though they followed globalization approach but they added a spice of localization. Mere globalization can never generate success, so it should/must be complemented with localization.

Localization refers to adopting and customizing your processes according to the cultural environment of particular place e.g., countries. Taking McDonald's example again, they practiced localization successfully, when they entered India they stopped selling pork and beef burgers and started selling potato burgers to meet the customized need of Indian consumers. Although there methodology, processes, service, outlet design is standardized in every country. This gives us the example of going global with practicing localization.

While travelling I came across somewhat similar thing. I saw SAP building which is originally from Germany and they established their office in India as part of their globalization objectives. But localization can be seen from the point that, they are flagging Indian flag on their building.

There is a tradition to give respect to the nation by lowering down the flag as sunsets. I came across many government buildings who host Indian flag but no one cares to pay tribute. But I was amazed to see such thing happening on some foreign company's site.

The ultimate way to increase your brand image and thereby profitability on foreign land is the right approach of localizing globalization.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Generale de Theory de Unemploymente

I am attempting to put some additional thoughts on the so called theory of unemployment after having some feedback from friends on the earlier part. Though they are very much agreed with the points in the earlier one, but it entered some narrower zone, may be because of the wrong example which I took to elaborate. Now I am trying to make it something general which could apply to any educational stream.

As I said earlier that increasing rate of unemployment is because of the mismatch between industry's requirement and institution's redundancy in imparting the desired knowledge. Another important reason is compromises of potential workforce due to lack of understanding of the difference between "job" and a "career".

Important aspect of unemployment is corporate world's rigidity, in the sense that, every company which came up with job offering put "experience" clause in their eligibility requirements. If every company do so, then from where the candidate gets the experience. Rather, they should consider "freshers" also, as they are fresh blood and mind to the organization and can be beneficial for the same, as the latter can mould them as per their operations and needs.

In order to reduce this increasing gap both i.e., educational institutions and corporate world need to work in collaboration. Educational institutions should design courses as per the industry need and demands and corporate world should become more flexible in order to give opportunities to fresh minds.

Fresh and energetic minds with support of applied skills and experienced corporate guidance can create miracles. It's the way how we perceive about a particular opportunity i.e., its upto us whether we encash it or we let it go. In today's time, although educational system is so flexible that everyone at any point of time can switch from one area of education to another but corporate world isn't that so. When three of them i.e., individual, educational institution and corporate world get together like a single force then no one can stop India from taking its world leader position.

Think about it!!!!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Indian marriages...

Writing this blog in very tired situation though tired by fun. Came after a friend's marriage reception and got tired after meeting so many people wearing fake smiles and glistening, bright and shining clothes.

It's very funny to attend Indian marriages but that's what (fun) we organize get together meets and other family events. If we remove this factor, then there will be no difference among it and boring typical corporate meetings.

Carrying plethora of gifts, wrapped in shining and attractive paper (although no one knows what's there behind and sometimes presenter even don't know it) enters into marriage venue. Women have their full attention on how costly and beautiful their sarees are, in comparison to others, girls and boys are busy searching for their company among crowd, giving each other signals of being singles and other sorts. Kids, don't even where they are going and for what, but one thing which is very clear in their mind is or we can say focused towards two things, one is DJ or their games and second is "ice-creams". And men, yes men how can we forget them, they enter the hall in hope of some cocktail stuff and if that's not available then they get involved in their boring topics of politics and business with their peers.

All these participants in such an event, wait eagerly for one thing, apart from various other stuffs in which they try to find their busyness or try to hide behind it, and that thing is the time of opening up of food court. While chit-chatting everyone has one eye at food court, in order to be the first one to lift up the plate and fill it with food (like priests do in Hinduism, they are served with fresh cook first and then later after he finish up his stomach filling rituals, other family members get to have something).

The moment food court opens, the whole scenario got reversed, except for bride and groom on the stage, everyone is in food court including the photographer. Sometimes, I thought there might be few people who went on dieting before attending such functions to eat to their necks.

(To be continued),,,tired now...sleeping...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Theory de Unemployment

"Unemployment" is a word, by which every country gets threatened of and want to reduce it, in order to improve its global outlook. Various efforts have been done in past and are still continuing, but this problem is spreading like a tumor cell, i.e., can't be removed from the economy completely.

James Tobin, defined it as "the fraction of work force unable to find work". But the question arises here that are really people want to sit idle at their homes? Are they really not interested in earning some self respect and social status & social attachment by not doing a job? or Is it the system's fault, because of which unemployment rises?

As put beautifully by John Maynard Keynes in his theory of full employment that, "The conservative belief that there is some law of nature which prevents men from being employed, that it is 'rash' to employ men, and that it is financially sound to maintain a tenth of the population in idleness for an indefinite period is crazily improbable - the sort of thing which no man could believe who had not had his head fuddled with nonsense for years and years".

Equally partners of creating such unemployment situation along with the system are potential workforce. They even don't know the difference between a job and a career. The moment they born, they got their brains filled with lots of words from inexperienced and loser people, that you should do this and you should do that. No one ever cares to ask his/her child what he/she wants to become, they just cares for what their relatives and neighbor thinks, although such people never gonna come in turbulent times to lend a hand of help.

Coming back to theory, according to my observations "the sole reason behind the high level of unemployment in any corner of this earth, is due to mismatch between skills of potential workforce and the need of potential employers". Let's look at an example to understand it in much better way, a person go for some technical course let's say MBA in any field e.g., finance. He/She spend whole two years in building and polishing up of his/her skills in that particular area and when he/she is ready to enter the corporate world, what they come across is that industry don't want MBA Finance and if they do they have a highly different job profile for that guy/girl let's say sales where he/she don't have any expertise or interest.

Continuing further to the above example, that person will left with two options, one, is to compromise with his/her interests and go for what industry is offering. This alternative is of disastrous nature to both the players. An individual will take up this job because of not getting of desired profile, due to which 100% justice to that job and organization can't be done. Also, it leads to that individual towards malpractices of fraud or forced him to left the job if he/she is highly ethical. Ultimately unemployment is created.

Second, he/she should wait for the right opportunity. Now, this alternative is highly unrealistic in practice because if such job profiles arises they goes to internal referred people or to some high class B-schools despite of giving chance to a skilled person. This will left that individual as a fresher i.e., without any experience due to which he/she will again not been able to get a good career. So unemployment again is created.

Now the question is why does it happen? The simple answer to this question is lack of trust, lack of confidence on person's skills and cost cutting measures (greed for more profits and less payouts).

But if organizations give a brainy thought to this rising problem they can create a mutually benefiting environment for themselves and for the prospective skilled people. If a person gets his interest area soon after the completion of his/her studies, he/she will definitely give 1000% to that job to make it profitable for organization and indirectly for himself too. Although company can save few thousand bucks by hiring skilled people and getting unskilled works done from them at low payouts in short term, but in long term they have to spend a lot in covering up fraudulent and erroneous works of those unsatisfied workforce.

So, in order to, improve quality of work and other standards organizations should follow effective measures to minimize the extent of this mismatch. Also, potential workforce keep their patience and should not compromise.

Always choose a "Career" not a "Job" because career is portrayed once in whole life but you can get as million jobs throughout your life. So, its in your hand how beautifully you draw your life's portray.

All the best!!!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Not for common...commonwealth...CWG

International activities which aims to integrate different economies are of crucial importance for the development of every nation on the front of increased economic development. Some of these international activities can be Olympics, Commonwealth games, conferences etc.

Now, one thinks how can these activities helps in economic development? then the answer to it is very simple, it attracts FDI into country, attracts foreign players for setting up of their businesses, employment creation, infrastructure development, spread of cultural values, boost to host country's industries, increased foreign exchange and a good image in the world's map.

Earlier, this opportunity and pleasure was vested with developed economies on the perception that since they are developed, so they will be capable of hosting such events. But now, scenario has reversed, developing and emerging economies are also been given equal opportunity to prove their mettle in hosting such events so that they can also get equal chance for development. We have lots of examples of this phenomenon around us, like China's successful hosting of olympic games, Brazil has been provided with an opportunity to host forthcoming olympic games, and India is hosting commonwealth games in FY 2010.

Reason for writing this blog is to think that are commonwealth games really able to provide above mentioned benefits. Are commonwealth games good for Indian citizens? Will commonwealth games be able to provide benefits to India? Well, after careful analysis I can say that commonwealth games are not creating any wealth for the common people, rather they are overloading them with huge price pressures in already highly inflationary conditions.

Delhi Government introduces various mandates for commonwealth games. As common people are already under high inflationary pressures thanks to slowdown in financial, economical markets and monsoon led lower supply, Delhi Government increased tax rates to cover up the funds required for the various developments. Apart from this, it raised prices on various commodities e.g., electricity, gas, pulses to vegetables.

All private buses are mandated to stop commuting during games interval. Various shopkeepers on commonwealth games track given mandate to shut down their shops during such period. Now, after seeing above facts, I am thinking whose making wealth out of these commonwealth games, ministers or common people.

Lack of planning, absence of strong leadership and lack of coordination among ministries is the sole reason behind the delay in the commonwealth project and ultimately the reason behind the fears and tears of common people. Story is still open for a good ending and let's see whether these commonwealth games will be helpful for India as they were for other economies. Will they create wealth for common people like they did for common people of other countries?

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Monday, December 28, 2009

Restricted democracy

Caretaker of this nation are the ones who are behind its non-development. India is a long story of growth without development. Though various think tanks fight each other in claiming different GDP rates for every fiscal, or some white suited persons count on their votes, but no one thinks about the poor or I must say the bottom of pyramid. Thanks to Prof. Prahlad who gave this concept which helped a lot in maximizing profits by corporates but if this would have been applied to our nation's development then that day is not far where, we will also be known as the citizen of developed nation.

Still people are under-nourished, under-covered, but those caretakers sitting in their cozy and warm rooms make plans to get & retain that power. In this democratic country, who is their to listen the voices of general public until unless they protest on streets which again invite violence against those innocents.

Shouldn't be there any system who immediately take actions against the grievances of general public for whom and by whom those caretakers enjoy all their lavishes. But nobody cares.

Its really ironical to believe and look around the current situation of our system. Let's hope it will get organised and smooth as soon as possible so that living of standards in reality got to improve.